A couple of months back, Steve Carell briefly blew up the Internet when he told a BBC Radio reporter that he would leave "The Office" after his contract ended next season. Then everyone calmed down once we realized we'd have a year to wait, and that NBC would have a year to back several dump trucks full of money up to the Carell/Walls home to keep him.

But over the weekend, at the red carpet premiere of his new animated movie "Depiscable Me," Carell insisted that it's not about the money, that seven years is a long time to play any character, and that he wants to spend more time with his family. And while in Hollywood the default answer is always "It's about the money," Carell is one of the few actors in the business whom I might even slightly believe when he insists otherwise.

If he's leaving, he's not going to take "The Office" with him. It's NBC's only half-hour comedy that's an actual success on its own, and it's functioned as a life-support system for "30 Rock" for the last four years. During upfront week, NBC president Angela Bromstad suggested the show would continue with or without him.

Those of you who were unhappy with the creative direction of this season, and who therefore assume Carell's departure gives NBC a natural excuse to end the show, are just wasting your time. That's not the way the TV business works, except in rare cases like "Lost" (and there, ABC at least had other continuing hits like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Desperate Housewives" to allow them to give Darlton an end date).

So if we figure that Carell's really leaving, and that the show will go on without him, what does that mean for the creative future of the series? I have some thoughts, after the jump...

When the initial BBC interview went viral back in April, I suggested that "The Office" might actually be better off without Carell at this point. He's a great comedian, and he made that show into a hit, but Michael Scott had become such a schizophrenic, all-things-to-all-writers character that he was getting in the way of the comedy at least as much as he was enabling it. The writers created many different flavors of Michael, and while everyone has their favorite, and some people might even like multiple flavors, it's hard to imagine that everyone loved them all.

Beyond that, there's the sense of ennui that crippled the sixth season. Much of last season was spent introducing, and then almost immediately abandoning, promising story ideas: Michael becoming part of the corporate culture at Dunder Mifflin, or Michael and Jim swapping jobs, or the sales staff becoming tyrants under the new Sabre corporate culture. Removing Michael would not only shake up the character dynamics, but I imagine it would force the writers out of their recent complacency and force them to follow ideas through to their logical conclusions.

But while I see advantages to a hypothetical ideal replacement, I'm really struggling to figure out who that might be.

I doubt the show would choose Michael's replacement from within. Not only would it undoubtedly cause strife among the current cast if, say, John Krasinski got promoted above one-time equal Rainn Wilson, but it would deprive NBC of the opportunity to promote the show with a new face at the center of it. Also, we've seen enough of Jim-as-boss to know it's not that funny as a long-term thing, and Dwight is already so far out there that giving him absolute power within the branch might make him (and the show) unwatchable. Andy becoming the new branch manager would at least allow the show to continue as it is, since Andy is just as socially tin-eared as Michael, albeit in subtly different ways.

I hope they don't go that route, either with Andy (with all due respect to Ed Helms) or with an outside person. Someone in a "Party Down" post last week, for instance, suggested that it would be simple to slide Ken Marino into that job without having to change much. I love Marino and agree that he can do many of the things Carell does (and has done them as Ron on "Party Down"), but again we'd run into the problem of the same-old, same-old on a series that badly needs a shakeup. It needs a character who can make Jim and Pam comedically relevant again, who can pull Dwight in from the edge of insanity, who can give the series the sense of direction it hasn't had since the Michael Scott Paper Company went out of business, etc.

Who is that person? Well, I'd like it to be someone not like Michael, but at the same time we saw briefly with Charles Minor (who was useful as a plot device but not a great engine for comedy) that bringing in his exact opposite won't automatically work. The show, as conceived by Gervais and Merchant and then adapted by Daniels, Carell and company, is about people stuck working in a job they hate for a boss they can't stand. If you put someone competent in charge - be it Jim or a new character - I don't know that there's enough juice there, or that it's still "The Office." So you have to find someone who's aggravating and/or weird, but in a way that doesn't just duplicate Michael so the replacement is constantly being compared to Carell. And that's not easy.

(For an example, look at Megan Mullally on "Party Down" this year. They replaced Jane Lynch with another very funny actress, made her ignorant and strange but in a different fashion from Lynch's character, and she only occasionally clicked.)

I'm not sure what kind of character it should be, or what actor or actress. Mainly I've spent a lot of time pondering pre-existing characters. Would it make any sense at all to bring in Amy Ryan full-time if she didn't have Carell to play off of? Probably not. Would transferring Karen back from Utica to take things over be interesting enough, or did her comic usefulness to the show end when both she and Pam had babies?

(Speaking of actors from "Parks and Recreation," Fienberg suggested that Daniels and Mik Schur loan Nick Offerman to their sister show for a four-episode arc in which Ron Effing Swanson briefly goes into the private sector, is hired to clean up Dunder-Mifflin from Michael's usual messes, and then moves back to Pawnee. That would certainly be fun - I can picture Dwight having a man-crush on Ron that would make his previous Michael idolatry seem like complete ambivalence (and I could also see Ryan, and Kelly, and the account department all digging the guy) - but of course what sitcom on television would not be improved by the temporary addition of Ron Effing Swanson? What part of life would not be improved, for that matter?)

Do I think "The Office" should continue on without Carell? Probably not. But unless NBC has such a massive ratings turnaround this year that it can afford to part with "The Office" - and probably not even then - that ship has sailed. Given that, who do you want to see sitting behind Michael's old desk? Someone old? Someone new? What kind of person?

I'm assessing them quite well. Community won't be around much longer, and Parks and Rec is a very average television sitcom. There's only so far you can go with a show about a dumb blonde and jokes about her being a dumb blonde and the zany situations dumb blondes get into. It's really not any better than the played out Steve Carell character on The Office.

That description does not fit the show at all. At all. You didn't watch the second season, did you? I don't blame you; the first season was as poor as The Office's first season. But, like The Office, the show took an enormous leap in quality in its second season.

As for Community's quality being connected to how long it stays on air, well, that is a fallacious line of reasoning. 30 Rock wouldn't be on the air if it weren't for it airing right after The Office (a claim backed up by 30 Rock's dreadful ratings in the few times when it didn't have an Office lead-in).

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Delano

Reaper16's taste in beer, music, and literature are unmatched on this message board.Posted via Mobile Device

I'm not entertained by "The Office" anymore.... all of the characters have run stale.

My new show of love is "The Big Bang Theory".

This.

The Office was one of the funniest shows for awhile, but it's become rather tedious and annoying. I just find myself yelling at Michael to stop being such an douchebag sometimes. At first, it was funny, now it's like you want to kidnap him and drive him to the nearest mental hospital and get rid of him for good. The show's been on too long- time to kill it.

The Big Bang Theory is funny and entertaining as hell. However, I'm wondering if I'll just get tired of that neurotic character pretty soon too.

This last season of The Office was by far the most tedious and uneven in the show's history. It was stop and go with more discomfort than laughs in between. Uncomfortable humor can be very funny and successful but it has to have perfect aim. The Office (as much as I hate to say it) was off the mark most of last season.

... HOWEVER. From the Christmas episode until the last two of the season, The Office was on fire. It was almost as good as it's ever been in that stretch. The show still has gas in the tank.

Do I think it should end with Carell? Yes. I do. But since it looks like that won't happen, I hope they make a smart move and do exactly as the article says. It's not about replacing Michael Scott with an impersonator or look/act-alike.

I'm not sure who the answer is... but I'll be damned if Michael Emerson wouldn't shake things up and rock the **** outta that show. Of course, I'd rather he and O'Quinn get their hitman show together.

This is do-able, if unwise. It will be difficult. But NBC has a chance to reinvent the show and hit a grand slam here.

To be fair, I haven't made it through all of Season One yet. And there are funny bits and pieces, but I don't get the overall appeal. I don't know what I'm missing. It just seems so whiney and arrogent and worn... I don't know... perhaps this is best served in another thread...